It’s Important to Keep Your Filter Clean
I just finished cleaning both of my vacuum cleaners. I know, they are supposed to be used for cleaning, but it became very apparent recently that the machine itself needed to be cleaned. Today was the day. I realized quickly that I didn’t know much about the inside of my vacuums (one large and one small). I do empty the container where the dirt goes, but I had thought little about cleaning or changing filters.
Those filters are hard to find!! Each vacuum had multiple filters made of foam rubber. The condition of those filters, when I finally found them, was less than stellar. (Sorry, if this makes you clean freaks out there have a come apart.) As I washed the filters and put them out to dry, I began to think about all the dust and dirt that had gone through those filters and eventually, stuck to them.
Then my mind began to wonder about the filter I use to keep the inside of myself clean.
Our minds “vacuum up” things all day long. Sometimes it is something we put there purposefully, and at other times we hear and take in things that cling to us and can cause us to lose our focus in living the Christian life.
Those thoughts and visions can come from all kinds of sources: the TV, the clerk at the grocery store, social media (probably should be at the top of the list), the music we listen to, the neighbors, or sometimes our friends…and this list could go on and on. As we travel through our day, we see and hear things that need to be filtered.
God blessed each of us with a filter called a conscience – that inner feeling that acts as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of our behavior. We are blessed when our parents have taught us right from wrong. I may not have understood exactly what I had done wrong as a child, but when my mother spanked me or scolded me for certain behaviors, I learned not to do it again!
That gift of a conscience within each of us needs to be trained by God’s Word – it is our guide in life to tell right from wrong. However, our consciences can be ignored and put to the test when we are tempted to do wrong. The longer we lie, cheat, steal, or do any wrong, the easier it is to continue that lifestyle. You begin to feel as if it is OK to continue what you are doing when, in fact, your “conscience has been seared with a hot iron…” Your God-given filter is not working.
Just like the filters in your vacuum need to be checked and cleaned so it continues to work properly, the filter God gave each one of us -our conscience- needs to be checked and kept in good working order.
“So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man” (Acts 24:16).
AUTHOR: Donna Faughn
